Twelve Reasons to Renovate

Building projects are always an undertaking. No couple renovates their kitchen on a whim. They weigh reasons, options, costs, and timing. Building projects are also exciting. So it is with our plans for our spaces to worship as a church and welcome our neighbors.

In January, our elders shared plans for what we’re calling, The Next Fifty—a season in which we celebrate the past as we build for the future. Many of you have your commitment cards in already and we’re mighty grateful for the insight that gives us. We understand that some of you need more time. That’s just fine. To help, we’ve put some dates on the calendar that you can shoot for as we celebrate God’s work in our church in the coming months.

Here’s what you can expect in the months ahead:

• Two Celebration Nights, May and August. These are good opportunities to complete or bring your commitment card if you haven’t done so already, or to adjust your commitment up or down if you get more clarity. The first will be Praise in the Park, May 18. The second will be a Hymn Sing sometime in August, date TBD.
• A Preaching Series in the Fall. Soon I’ll begin working on an outline for a short series of expositions to stir us and strengthen us in Christ for his worship, hospitality, evangelism, local and global church planting, etc. All the good stuff we mean to stay about on and from this street corner.
• Testimonies and Prayer Along the Way. We’ll continue to pray for this endeavor regularly at our monthly Evening Prayer services and as elders. We’d encoruage you to do the same in your Shepherding Groups. We’ll also hear from members of how God’s Word has been at work in them and our church. We’ll do this in our Lord’s Day Gathering and in a more extended way in our Family Meetings, working through our church’s history as the year unfolds.
• A Culminating Celebration Night. When our fall preaching series concludes, we’ll host a final Celebration Night to share some totals, celebrate God’s kindness, and to chart the way forward.

Twelve Reasons

In the meantime, more insight and more information is always a good thing.

Here are twelve reasons to renovate, the first two being the longest. Get through those and then hang on with me through the end. Then, for a baker’s dozen, a final (longer) reason.

First, our most important space needs the most work.

If we couldn’t meet to worship, we wouldn’t be a church. Church means assembly, after all. The auditorium is where we do that. We’re God’s house, not the physical property. But our property needs some work if it’s going to remain our gathering place for another generation.

Here’s what needs fixin’ with some insight into why this should happen all together.

• Water damage. Peel back the baseboards and you can see outside. Not good. Our auditorium was built on a below-grade slab and over the years water has gotten through. We need to remove all the exterior siding to determine how far the deterioration goes. Additionally, the rock feature on the front of our building facing the street is peeling off allowing water to infiltrate.
• Safety. Look up on Sunday and you’ll notice that we don’t have a sprinkler system. Once we start any major renovation, we’ll be required to bring the building to code with sprinklers. This makes good sense for safety purposes.
• Carpet. If we’re going to pull the ceiling down to install a sprinkler system, that’s the time to replace the carpet. Our carpet has seen about 2,000 Sundays and about two million sets of shoes.
• Lighting. While the ceiling is out, that’s the time to install new ceiling lights. The styling is dated, but even more important, so is the technology and our ability to control lighting in the room.
• Seating. Some of our pews have broken brackets, some are loose from the floor, some have cracked wood and sag, many have worn out padding. The time to deal with seating is when the ceiling comes down and when the carpet comes up.
• Screen. Our auditorium screen needs to be replaced. One day we will pull it up for a baptism and it won’t come down. There are indications that this is coming soon. At over twenty years old the material of the screen itself is starting to degrade.
• Aging AVL gear. Some of our critical audio, visual, and lighting gear is borrowed from church members or older hand-me-downs from other organizations. This means more time rigging equipment and patching together technology that wasn’t meant to work together.
• HVAC. We have aging HVAC units and, again, the time to take care of these at the front of the building is when we’re doing work on the front of the building.

Here’s the short of it: our beloved auditorium has many interlocking issues—some of them well overdue. We are responsible to address them and we’re financially wise to do so all at once.

Renovate is a misleading word. It makes it sound like this is an update for window-dressing. That is not the case, as we outlined in January. Imagine that we need to build a new auditorium but thankfully we get to start with a foundation and a steel structure and some bones.

Second, we want our gathering space to better highlight and unite our congregation.

Our church will be healthier for a room that better supports our gathering as a church. Here are some dreams we’ve had for many years.

• Sightlines. Sight lines in our room are not great. It’s hard to see one another and the room is long. We considered a new footprint for the building but that would be exceedingly expensive. We believe new seating and platform will allow better visibility to the preacher and the church family.
• Intelligibility. The room sings well, and we’ll protect that. But we need to improve intelligibility for the preaching. Upgraded assisted listening technology will help those hard of hearing. Dealing with distracting mechanical issues will cut down on noise interference. New audio systems and acoustic design can improve evenness and clarity across the room for musical accompaniment and the spoken word.
• Approachable platform. The stairs to the platform are narrow and, for some, dangerous. At the present time, we don’t have older members to the front for this reason. A new platform design will allow more participation.
• Removing artifacts. Our many stairs were designed with wedding parties in mind. We would like more weddings at our church, but we don’t need all those stairs. Large speaker panels used to serve an electric organ that was controlled separate from our audio mix. Those are obsolete. The “penalty boxes” as we call them used to house the organ and a piano off to the side. That’s about 1/3 of our front space out of use.
• More inviting seating. Our pews are narrow, designed for maximum seating. But they can be difficult for most of us to shuffle into and mean some members must sit in the back.
• A more congregational expression of the ordinances. Baptisms are conducted in the wall at the head of our long room, with just the pastor and the baptismal candidate together. Not every seat can view them. We would like to bring baptistry to the platform, closer to the congregation and in a place where a handful of members could stand around the tub. For communion, we would like the option of having members come and receive the bread and cup, but the narrow pews prohibit this, lest we must ask some to step out to allow others to come.
• Beauty and aesthetics. We’re used to it, but the pervasive burgundy, the oversized light fixtures, and the popcorn ceiling have not aged well. It’s time to refresh the space.

Third, goers and senders need a strong homebase.

A healthy building will support strong sending. The preaching in this room will bring conversion, sustain the church, and stir some to go and the rest to send. A strong sending church will not tie up its vocational staff or deacons with constant building issues. We want our leaders at every level focused on our mission. So, let’s invest in our property for a few years for the sake of the next fifty—here and abroad.

Fourth, our neighbors will notice.

When our neighbors drive by, we want our building to make a statement: that we are part of this community and that we’re alive in here, ready for company. Signage installations will contribute to that. So will new facing on the auditorium, our most prominent and neglected building. From Halcyon apartments, to the Spinx, to Harris Teeter, we are surrounded by establishments that have been fully renovated in the last few years. Empty or deteriorating plazas have revitalized spaces. This is a good time to consider how our property can make a nice contribution to the block.

Fifth, our Sunday guests will feel welcome.

When neighbors take up an invitation to join us on Sunday, we want our space to be ready for company. Renovated lobby spaces with an emphasis on hospitality will help. A new hospitality room designed for our monthly Newcomers Reception. An open coffee bar will provide space to linger in conversation without the intensity of foot traffic between sides of the building.

Sixth, it’s always exciting to take ownership of a property.

Here I’m not thinking of church finances but church family. We are blessed to have a handful of founding members with us now fifty years later. But if you run the numbers, about half the church has been here for ten years or less. Which means most of our church family did not put up the buildings that make up our property. Like a family moving into a home, it’s exciting to take personal ownership of the space, to make it fit the family that meets here.

Seventh, we have good plans laid for this project.

Our master planning process for this project began in 2021. We chose our design firm for a few reasons. First, they have a team devoted to designing churches. Second, they were intent on visiting our church on a Sunday to get acquainted with our congregation firsthand. Third, they were eager to involve a professional acoustician early in the process to support a room designed for hearing the Word and singing our faith.

Eighth, we have a history of doing this well.

In our fifty-year history, we have bought, built, and renovated buildings. We put money down and we take out loans we can pay off aggressively in a few years. This is how we’ve been able to train pastors and plant churches time and again. Here’s a thumbnail sketch of our plan for this renovation: We don’t intend to begin this 3.25-million-dollar project until we have 1 million saved. At that time, we’ll take out a 2.25-million-dollar loan which we will work to pay off in three years. This is a reasonable plan for a church our size with a budget our size.

Ninth, just think of the numbers.

This four-year investment will have an outsized influence, Lord willing, for fifty years and beyond. Think of how many worship services will be held here in that time: 2,600. If you were taking on a kitchen remodel project, you might consider some of the factors we’ve covered already: things that are broken, opportunities for improved seating and lighting, issues of timing, and overall cost. But intuitively you’d understand that an expensive investment now would serve your family and guests for decades. The same holds true here. Here’s another number: if the average member gives $200 each month, we’ll get there in four years. Some will give $400 per month, and some will give $100 per month. You get the point: we’ll get there

Tenth, we don’t know what the future will hold.

We can do this now, but we might not be able to do it later. We can guess that this project will get more expensive. Our church is in a healthy place. Yes, even in terms of giving. We’ve been giving below budget lately, but above budget for several years. And some of the dip in giving is explained by the absence of unequal windfall-type gifts. In all, this is a good time.

Eleventh, we want our children to become baptized members of this church in this community without the burden of an aging building.

Some of you grew up here. Many of us have and are raising our children here. We pray that a future preaching pastor could say the same to this congregation in fifty years. Which means we hope and expect many of our children to be converted, married, and matured right here. Some of them will become elders and deacons. Building problems will distract them from the great commission. Let’s put them in a good position as a church, just as we would want to do for our own children.

Twelfth, we’re turning fifty!

It sure will be nice to gather in an updated space and it’s okay to say that. We’re turning fifty. So, let’s make the most of it. Over the coming months and year, we’ll continue our interviews and conversations about our church’s founding and unfolding story. We’ll do this to remind ourselves of the very works of God we pray we’ll continue in and through our church.

Finally, there’s more to do.

We have good plans for the rest of the property in a future phase. Here are a few of the puzzles our master planning process has helped us solve.

• A prominent entrance to welcome guests on one side of the auditorium facing the street. If you drive around our church, you’ll count 29 swinging doors and several prominent entrances. More entry-points is not actually more hospitable. We need a main entrance facing the road.
• Safer and simpler spaces for children’s discipleship. Today our children are spread between four places. Younger elementary children use The Cave as a large gathering space during the sermon. Elementary age children are in the Elementary Wing at 11am. Littles are in the Nursery Wing. Pre-Schoolers are spread between rooms at the entrance to the Nursery Wing and rooms at the entrance to the Elementary Wing. This confuses guests and complex from a safety standpoint. There are—no joke!—four entrances to the Nursery Wing alone. Here’s our plan. First, we’ll consolidate nursery and preschool in the present Nursery Wing by converting the current office space to more children’s space. Second, we’ll extend the Elementary Wing with a large gathering space. Finally, our outside spaces are largely built for cars, not kids. Our children need a safe place to play outside without cars whizzing by. A new playground opposite a new main entrance will do the trick.
• Space for our vocational staff to pastor, plan, and train interns. Under that new extension to the Elementary Wing, we’ll build out new offices. I’m not drawing enough attention to the need for office space, as it seems a bit selfish, but this space is integral to our shared mission as a church. At present, your current vocational staff have outgrown our office wing, and we lack space for embedding future interns for planting residents into our staff team.
• Reconfigured parking lot that is easier for our guests and safer for all of us. The current parking lot design was configured to maximize parking spots but is precarious and disorienting.

Three Phrases

We share this property every Lord’s Day. We share responsibility for it as members. And our mission to share the gospel compels us to reinvest in this property.

As we set out together on this encouraging, sometimes awkward, and in-all-ways sacrificial building project, I want to give you one final list. The best kind. Here are three phrases for you to rehearse.

• First, the Apostle Paul stirred the Corinthian church with these words: “God loves a cheerful giver” (2Cor. 9:7). That’s not said with a scowl to slap us into cheerfulness, but to reveal and stir us to give with the heart of God.
• Second, Paul commended the faithful giving of the Philippian church by thanking the Lord, for their “partnership in the gospel” (Phil. 1:5). That’s the word for “fellowship” but it has connotations of planning and investing and giving. This building, friends, is our partnership in the gospel.
• Finally, “if the Lord wills” (Js. 4:15). Of course, some will give more, and we need them to. Others will give less and the Lord smiles on them just the same. Some will give more than they planned and some less than they planned. We will commit together, and we will give what we give, all under the banner, “if the Lord wills.”

Jesus is building church, and the gates of hell won’t stand against it. But our building is not that strong, and it wasn’t meant to be. So, let’s take care of our well-loved space for the sake of Christ’s praise here at Old Spartanburg and Hudson Road.